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Activist Judy Heumann in 2021
Photo: BFA / action press
Judy Heumann, a renowned disability rights advocate, has died at the age of 75.
She was considered by many to be the "
mother of the disability rights movement,
"
according to a message published on her website about her death
.
She fought for the rights of people with disabilities at the forefront of large demonstrations, helped pass legislation and founded national and international advocacy groups.
Discrimination complaint
Heumann was born in Brooklyn in 1947, the eldest of three children.
She contracted polio when she was 18 months old and has used a wheelchair ever since.
She and her mother had to make several efforts to enable her to attend school at all.
The public school refused her entry under fire safety pretexts.
Instead, she should be homeschooled.
In fourth grade she went to a special needs school.
Heumann's mother, along with other parents, exerted enough pressure to allow her daughter to attend the local high school by 1961.
In the 1970s, Heumann won a lawsuit against the Board of Education and became the first teacher in the state who could work in a wheelchair.
The Committee had previously tried to ban her from doing this job.
Supposedly also for fire safety reasons.
The activist played a leading role in the historic, nonviolent occupation of a federal building in San Francisco in 1977.
This paved the way for the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which went into effect in 1990.
»
Opportunities we didn't have.
«
Heumann can also be seen in the
2020 documentary
»
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution
« .
The film was nominated for an Oscar.
Heumann also attended Camp Jened, a summer camp for children with disabilities, between 1956 and 1965.
Heumann's experience at the camp brought her a greater awareness of different experiences with disabilities.
She later said,
"
We shared the same joy together, the same anger at the way we were treated, and the same frustrations at opportunities we didn't have.
«
From 1993 to 2001, Heumann served in the Clinton administration as Secretary of State for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services
Ministry of Education
.
She was also involved in the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which came into force in May 2008.
Heumann died in Washington DC.
nga